To create a balanced ruleset, it's important to sometime fill the gaps of already canon lore with new information. This might be name of important clan figures, new towns/villages across the lands, the policies within different departments of a ninja village etc. The reason I have created this thread is because I want some feedback on when I must fill the gaps of important aspects of the Narutoverse. Some things might be liked. Some things might be disliked. Some things you might want to change/tweak.

The first question regards the Aburame Clan. I have recently put them into the core book and some questions arised which I must answer before they are fully playable.

Suggestive reply: The Aburame Clan has a district close to the Hokage Mountain and to the village's outer walls. The district mainly consists of shaded roads because of large cement buildings. The cold and moist atmosphere helps the clan in breeding insects used for various research/elixirs/poisons. Below the cement buildings they have dark basements where they collect their bugs. It's also rumored that under the clan's meeting hall is a basement where the queen of the destruction bugs reside. It is to her the successor of the clan make their contracts to bless newborn Aburame as new hosts for her children (another idea is that they have another place outside of town where they guard this insect queen). All Aburame wear sunglasses because the shadows of their streets and the darkness of their quarters have made their eyes fragile to sunlight.

Would it be very freaky to suggest sunglasses also because their eyes are affected by maintaining such a relationship with the bugs? Faceted eyes that would make the clan feared/give them negative relations with other clans/villages? I like the normal shadow=sunglasses idea. Just wanted to air the eye thing.

I say that the queen of destruction bugs(if she actually exists, that might be a convenient cover to make the aburame seem more than they already are) might reside in an area of her own. Kinda like the frog mountain. Although it's not unthinkable that they got their queen inside the city, I just wonder if it's with the Elders/Hokage's blessing? Is there some unspoken contract in this regard? This does raise the question of how big she is...

Second thought says: deep underground lair. small queen. Size does not matter to one who eats chakra for a living.

Kagudo Kaoinshi wrote:Would it be very freaky to suggest sunglasses also because their eyes are affected by maintaining such a relationship with the bugs? Faceted eyes that would make the clan feared/give them negative relations with other clans/villages? I like the normal shadow=sunglasses idea. Just wanted to air the eye thing.

I say that the queen of destruction bugs(if she actually exists, that might be a convenient cover to make the aburame seem more than they already are) might reside in an area of her own. Kinda like the frog mountain. Although it's not unthinkable that they got their queen inside the city, I just wonder if it's with the Elders/Hokage's blessing? Is there some unspoken contract in this regard? This does raise the question of how big she is...

Second thought says: deep underground lair. small queen. Size does not matter to one who eats chakra for a living.

My idea of the queen was that she was about the size of a pillow, resting with her eggs next to a contract written in blood with the Aburame Clan. They speak to her telepathically like they do with their bugs because she's not a "ninja bug"/"summoning bug" but a "special kind". I can visualize a picture in my mind where Shino's father is kneeling before her in a dark lair.

Another question: How do you feel about Senjutsu chakra visually affecting the user depending on his contract (snake contract = snake-like hermit, dog contract = dog-like hermit) instead of only giving frog users the opportunity to become hermits? Oh, and sage mode will be weaker in the core book than in canon because we don't want the characters to become practically indestructible.

Ekorren wrote:My idea of the queen was that she was about the size of a pillow, resting with her eggs next to a contract written in blood with the Aburame Clan. They speak to her telepathically like they do with their bugs because she's not a "ninja bug"/"summoning bug" but a "special kind". I can visualize a picture in my mind where Shino's father is kneeling before her in a dark lair.

Another question: How do you feel about Senjutsu chakra visually affecting the user depending on his contract (snake contract = snake-like hermit, dog contract = dog-like hermit) instead of only giving frog users the opportunity to become hermits? Oh, and sage mode will be weaker in the core book than in canon because we don't want the characters to become practically indestructible.

Good idea about the queen! I like that one.

Toning down Sage mode: good.Every animal = Sage: uncertain.

Looking at Orochimaru he essentially was a Snake Sage (elongated neck, storing/regurgitating weapons/items, poisonous bite/blood, shedding skin/reincarnation..) but it was never said that he undertook a contract to do so. It was only implied. Orochimaru was said to have experimented on himself to the extreme extent of not having a real human body anymore. That's one serious drawback to his immortality jutsu in my book.

Looking on Kakashi and his relation with the dogs, knowing that he has not so much chakra to use he only learned the increased smell ability. Whereas Kibi has with the Dog as nin-companion has effected an almost unheard of level of smell(the ninjutsu of combining with companion and becoming more dog-like to effect a stronger attack notwithstanding), impressing even Kakashi.

If this is all on a level, then Sage is simply the top tier of affinity with your animal bond.

Remembering Gamabunta's wording when Naruto entered into the contract, the human is subservient to the animal. When and if this service becomes an equal-opportunity relation is hard to tell. Gamabunta only helped defeat Gaara's full form because Naruto saved one of his children dring combat. Basically the Sage ability has come about from impressing the frogs, and perhaps also by the previous relationship with Jiraya. Debt? In rememberance?

The actions of one can affect another. Going both ways. There may be animal contracts that have been voided, and never re-entered into because ninja may have done something to upset the animal type. (Sasuke forcing Bunta to save him by use of Genjutsu, he has not used snakes since then that I can remember, contract broken?)

Perhaps the contract is self evolving depending on what level you are as a ninja and what prerequisites you meet.In Naruto's case, we see that the rank as ninja doesn't matter, only the self improvement on your own.

Sage mode, in and of itself, seems to be a strange thing in the Narutoverse, and there is no explanation for it being Frog-based.

Oro's self-experimentation (Nan no Kaizou, used by himself and Tsurugi [vs Kankurou in Pre-Chuunin exam 3], for example) led to a lot of stuff, but whether or not that had to do with his snake contract, we don't know.

Sasuke has used snakes on a few instances, including when subduing the combative Juugo/Suigetsu, vs Deidara's initial bombing attack, vs Deidara after a wing was blown off, and a number of times vs Itachi. However, each of these instances was after Sasuke had absorbed Oro, so who's to say, unless he summons more now (None used vs Hachibi).

As for messing around with your contracted animal, yeah.... Messing up Manda with Genjutsu was cruel, but necessary for Sasuke to survive. Didn't seem to bode well with his animal contract, in theory, but he only used snakes with Genjutsu vs Itachi, anyway (minus Yamato no Orochi).

Personally, I think the slug-folks have it worst off, even worse than the dogs... We've only ever seen 1 slug summon used, and that one is a piss-poor fighter (a good distraction target, though), with its only skill seeming to be that it can split itself up and share chakra/knowledge, similar to how multiple bodies of Pain could do the same (what one is told, all know). Useful technique, if you're splitting up a large group of people on the same team.... But that's so specific and rarely used that it's practically pointless. At least the dogs can track, and lock people down (as vs Zabuza).

What we do know about Sennin mode is that it requires an obsene amount of normal Stamina/Chakra to be usable, and the training is normally supposed to take years to pay off (Naruto's cheat-no-Jutsu nonwithstanding), and has huge reprecussions. Seeing as how most tabletops don't make a particular path/training something along the lines of "Alright, roll 1d10, and 1-3 = your character is stone and dies, 7-10 = you get the Sage mode".... Those kinda of blind risks are usually reserved for quicker game formats.

If I add details for how to achieve sage mode (which I might do, though probably not in time for the first alpha release), I would probably limit it to those who chose the characteristic background: "Strong chakra" during character creation (which is an expensive but powerful choice: other expensive choices are ninja clan allignment and kekkei genkai). This way, the sage mode training can come as a pleasant surprise for a player based on his GM:s desire of blessing him with the power. The actual training then would probably work similar to training an elemental affinity (combine chakra control with a tutor's leadership to calculate an estimated training time required to learn the technique). I would probably remove the stone form from the equation, unless the player would totally botch his rolls.

On the subject of characteristic backgrounds: my test character I use when writing the ruleset is a Hidden Mist ninja. Upon character creation I both gave him Ice Style bloodline limit and let him start with two elemental affinities (water and wind so he can actually use his ice element). The cost of starting out with these advantages was that I also had to give him "weak chakra" (which reduces his chakra by 50% so one pretty cheap jutsu can drain him halfway at his current state), I had to lower his wealth to unfortunate (everyone start with moderate as basic) and gave him a traumatic memory. Negative backgrounds give points you can spend for more powerful positive backgrounds. It's a system I "stole" from a Swedish RPG.

Since only those with Bloodline limit for background can get to choose a bloodline for their char, I think it's a good idea to only let those choosing Strong chakra (which increases one's basic chakra level by 100%) can later become hermits. I might write a post about the backgrounds and characteristics later.